The next move is P. O'Neill's. In the meantime, the British and Irish governments will take comfort from the fact that Mr David Trimble did not issue any outright rejection of their blueprint yesterday. The leader of the Ulster Unionist Party is prepared to wait and see what republicans say and, much more importantly, do.
Between now and Monday and beyond, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, earnestly hope that Mr Trimble's fractured party will have the nerve and the strategic wit to see this process through, to either success or failure.
All is not by any means lost, but the next few days will be nerve-racking for the central players. It's all down to whether the IRA will deliver - and deliver sufficiently to allow Mr Trimble and the Yes wing of his party to persuade his troubled and alienated constituency that the pain is really worth the gain.
What the governments' proposals primarily are about is bringing the IRA back to its statement of May last year. Remember P. O'Neill's quote of the time: "In that context, the IRA leadership will initiate a process that will completely and verifiably put IRA arms beyond use."
Republicans can be jesuitical in their choice of language, but that statement seems crystal clear. It reads as a very firm pledge, and the IRA likes to be seen as an organisation that is as good as its word.
And the "context", as senior Sinn Fein figures such as Mr Gerry Adams have confirmed again and again, is the full implementation of the Belfast Agreement. And that is how Mr Brian Cowen and Dr John Reid described their document.
Which explains why the glare from the document is decidedly more green than orange. The governments, without being prescriptive, are seeking to provide the context so that the IRA will provide the guns, as per its May 2000 commitment.
An interesting aside here is that one of the most fractious moments of the Weston Park talks in Shropshire was when, according to good sources, the UUP arts minister, Mr Michael McGimpsey, accused republicans of breaking their word on arms. Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness went "ballistic", we were informed at the time. "Republicans honour their word," they told Mr McGimpsey through clenched teeth.
So does this package provide the context? There are other matters, but the four main issues of these talks were arms, demilitarisation, policing and stabilising the institutions. The consistent Sinn Fein line from Weston Park was: if our demands on the last three issues are met, then there can be movement on weapons.
Let's go through the four issues. On safeguarding the institutions, the governments clearly state that the First Minister will no longer be in a position to prevent Sinn Fein ministers Mr McGuinness and Ms Bairbre de Brun from attending North-South meetings. Such meetings will be planned six months in advance. As the document states: "In accordance with the agreement, at sectoral meetings the Executive's representation will (my italics) include the appropriate minister able to take decisions in the Council on the relevant sector."
One up for nationalists.
On demilitarisation, the British government's pledges are very strong. There is a promise of "rolling" normalisation and a pretty immediate commitment to dismantle watchtowers and structures in Armagh and Derry if the paramilitary threat is reduced. And listen to this: "Ultimately, the normal state would mean the vacation, return or demolition of the great majority of army bases, the demolition and vacation of all surveillance towers, no further army presence in police stations and the use of army helicopters for training only." This prompted one English journalist to exclaim: "Is this the British army leaving Northern Ireland?"
This section is crucial, because it appears to meet the republican ideological insistence that the IRA, at least in its own eyes, is a legitimate force which was never defeated. When the decommissioning issue was raised by Sir Patrick Mayhew, the former Northern Secretary, in the mid-1990s, the line from Mr Adams was that there could be no "unilateral disarmament". What's in the document is tantamount to bilateral disarmament from the British army and the IRA.
Two up for nationalists.
On policing, there is a commitment to initiate amending legislation after October next year - when the Oversight Commissioner, Mr Tom Constantine, has concluded a review of the new policing arrangements - to bring the Mandelson Police Act more into line with Patten. This, according to the proposals, will involve the closure of Gough interrogation centre in Armagh, the phasing out of the full-time RUC Reserve and the expansion of the part-time reserve in the new Police Service of Northern Ireland, as Patten proposed.
The governments did not publish their full police implementation plan yesterday for the very good reason that unionists had enough to suffer without having to read through the detail of how the Union flag would no longer fly over police stations, how there would be no British symbols in the force's crest, cap and flag, and how former paramilitaries could join the local policing boards, etc, etc.
There will be some quid pro quo for unionists in that the RUC name is expected to remain in the title deeds of the Police Act. But generally, when the police reform work is completed, it should amount to almost the full Patten, as Sinn Fein and the SDLP demand. It may be significant here that last Thursday Mr Adams used the non-absolutist term of the Patten "threshold" being met in the document rather than demanding every dot and comma of Patten.
So, essentially, three up for nationalists.
And that is without mentioning the amnesty for former paramilitaries on the run, which is deeply unpalatable for unionists.
Against all that adversity one must admire Mr Trimble for having the nerve and the courage to test whether the IRA will provide the fourth wheel - weapons - to allow this vehicle to move. If there is to be balance, Mr Trimble needs a substantive gesture from the IRA. That's obvious.
There has been talk of the IRA capping the two or three dumps already seen by the arms inspectors. That would help Mr Trimble, but it would hardly be enough. He would probably need strong language about an end to the conflict and perhaps a timetable, or a convincing hint of a timetable, on how the remainder of the IRA's weapons would be "completely and verifiably" put beyond use.
If senior pro-agreement unionists are to keep holding their nerve, they will need some sort of statement from the IRA pretty soon. Just looking through the proposals, it seems difficult for republicans to argue that the British and Irish governments have not done their utmost to provide the greater part of the "context" under which the IRA promised it would deliver in May last year. But if the IRA wants an out, it will find an out.
Without IRA movement, it is obvious that unionists will walk away. But even with a substantial IRA gesture Mr Trimble will have trouble delivering his party, such is the distress of the police proposals and the amnesty for the OTRs.
Yet there is a 50:50 chance that we could all be delivered from political uncertainty and torpor. If the IRA believes the package offers enough for it to honour its pledges, Mr Trimble can argue that it was his pressure which prompted this action.
If Mr Jeffrey Donaldson and Mr David Burnside launch a heave, Mr Trimble can equally say - this on the assumption of real movement on arms - that while he opposes the amnesty and the police reform, whoever should succeed him will be equally powerless to resist those concessions because they are in the gift of a very powerful British Prime Minister.
There is an element of this being a Catch 22 for unionists. The effective reality is: `This is what unionists must stomach if they want devolution to continue. If they are prepared to sacrifice devolution to make their point, they may have to stomach worse, with an increased involvement of the Irish Government in Northern Ireland affairs."
At the moment, all eyes are on what the IRA does next. It's over to Mr or Ms O'Neill.